Fiasco shows need to scrap ID cards

PUBLISHED: 12:14 29 November 2007 | UPDATED: 15:19 12 May 2010

THE Government s data disaster over child benefit records shows why plans for Identity Cards must be scrapped. The fiasco has shown the dangers of the Government holding huge amounts of information about each one of us while being slipshod in the way that

The fiasco has shown the dangers of the Government holding huge amounts of information about each one of us while being slipshod in the way that same information is looked after.

The whole saga of incompetence has been shocking and families in Royston will be asking whether their personal records are safe.

The National Identity Register, which the Government is setting up as part of the Identity Card scheme, will hold vastly more information on each and every one of us than customs and revenue managed to lose.

The possibilities for the loss of that information, either accidentally or through illegitimate means, must make the Government stop and think seriously about its plan to store all the data it can on a central register.

This is a clear illustration of the real dangers of a Big Brother centralised state.

State control of personal identity details is a real threat to our civil liberties.

The Government should respond to the anger and now abandon its ID scheme. It is clear that the Government cannot be trusted to manage effectively mass databases of personal information.

The Liberal Democrats opposed ID cards when the scheme went through Parliament.

We said the scheme would be expensive, misguided and insecure. The latest debacle shows just what is at risk.

The Government must end the ID scheme for good in order to ensure that we do not risk a personal data disaster on an even more catastrophic scale.

Council leader Steve Count is planning a “gesture of unity” by handing back part of his allowance in support of the 1,800 county council staff forced to take unpaid leave this Christmas as part of cost saving measures.